Alloy Wheel Painting – BMW M3 Anthracite Grey

We had a set a failry badly kerbed 18″ BMW M3 Alloy Wheels brought to us for a full refurbishment. The customer decided on a total respray in Anthracite Grey, one of my favourite finishes for BMW wheels.

The M3 wheels are originally a highly polished finish with no paint and they often suffer from very bad corrosion of the clear coat finish. The kerb damage only made things worse:

The first step is to remove the wheels from the car. We let the air out of the tyres and then break the bead of the tyre to allow easier access to the rims.

The damaged areas are sanded with a dual action sander and the clearcoat is removed from the rest of the wheel.

The four wheels are masked off and then a coat of self etching primer is applied to provide a secure basecoat for the paint. We mix the paint – Anthracite Grey – a fairly dark grey with lots of metallic flake in to make the wheels sparkle. After thoroughly drying the two coats applied, the wheels are finally covered in two coats of lacquer and cured under an infra red light. A final polish and the wheels are completed for another happy customer.